A vinyl record of Fairuz manipulated in the studio, at the heart of the sampling process. (Credit: AI Illustration generated)
In "All the Love," from his 2026 album "Bully," Kanye West — now Ye — brings in, from the very start, a fragment of Fairuz’s Fayek Alaya. Torn from its orchestral setting, the voice is stretched, looped, rewritten into a sonic architecture both foreign to it and yet familiar.It becomes breath, substance, propulsion. As soon as the track is released, the origin of the sample is identified. Archives resurface, circulate, are exchanged. Listening becomes an investigation. Then, invariably, the debate ensues.For Ye's use of Fairuz fits into a broader dynamic. Drake had already sampled Wahdon; projects associated with Madonna have also summoned Arab voices in Western pop environments. Each of these gestures indicates a shift: Fairuz’s voice no longer belongs to a territory, but rather to a flow. It now moves within a...
In "All the Love," from his 2026 album "Bully," Kanye West — now Ye — brings in, from the very start, a fragment of Fairuz’s Fayek Alaya. Torn from its orchestral setting, the voice is stretched, looped, rewritten into a sonic architecture both foreign to it and yet familiar.It becomes breath, substance, propulsion. As soon as the track is released, the origin of the sample is identified. Archives resurface, circulate, are exchanged. Listening becomes an investigation. Then, invariably, the debate ensues.For Ye's use of Fairuz fits into a broader dynamic. Drake had already sampled Wahdon; projects associated with Madonna have also summoned Arab voices in Western pop environments. Each of these gestures indicates a shift: Fairuz’s voice no longer belongs to a territory, but rather to a flow. It now moves...
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